#like if 12 year olds were in wrestling this is what would happen

[thornwashere]

sometimes i think about the behind the scenes for earth rumble

like was toph just back there with the hippo and fire nation man just playing connect four or

*active noises of pain and destruction*

toph af: “UNO!”

[crushedsweets]

Hey! I love your artwork! I think it’s beautiful!!!

I just wanted to ask, what would Toby and Natalie’s relationship be like if they were able to start dating? I’m genuinely curious.

P.S. LONG LIVE TICCIWORK AND NINAKATE!!!!!

HIIII OK I LIKE THIS OMG i cant believe i hadnt thought about it before. ok i spoke a lot more than i thought i would...all under the cut LOL omg..

okay so, like i mentioned, they would probably have some random drunk kiss one night. maybe a christmas party and nina brings in mistle toe and its stupid. maybe new years party and the clock strikes 12 and they were like 'fuck it why not'.

natalie would have to initiate a lot of the starting conversations and touches. toby grew up with people thinking he was some gross virus roaming around, with boys pushing him around and girls sneering at him, so he's really hesitant. and natalie does get upset pretty easily if toby tries doing things without her permission, even if its something like doing her laundry - he has to ask. and he always does

it would start off pretty awkward too... neither of them know what to say, and both of them are so stubborn with egos the size of the moon - their pride knows no bounds. but at times, toby's ego can morph into something more cocky and he'll say stupid shit. 'you wanna kiss me so bad i know it' 'oh should i get nina to buy some mistle toe again' 'if you wanted to spend the night you couldve just asked'. at first clocky would get mad and pissy, and toby would laugh at her, and they'd move on. but eventually instead of moving on, one of them would say something like 'well.... do you actually want to' and they would. awkwardly, of course. a kiss, laying in bed together, brushing eachothers hair, etc.

their most intimate moments probably happen in the kitchen. that's always been quite the place of love for toby, so to lean against a counter and bring natalie close and give her a kiss in the warmest room of the house while something good is cooking in the oven ... probably means a lot to him

i think they'd love hikes. theres a waterfall in my au that they'd go to often, strip down to their underwear, and sit under. they'd wrestle and splash water and laugh and eat some fruit they packed and fall asleep under the sun after hours of just fucking around. kisses constantly swap between sudden acts of passion and excitement, to a quiet, lazy, quick kiss while throwing a towel over their shoulder.

but of course, they are still difficult. toby's reckless and natalie is picky, so theres a lot of arguments that spring up from nothing. this would be a constant thing until one of them eventually cries - something neither of them are used to. that would probably be a tipping point for them to start really looking into being a better person for eachother. but that is not easy by any means and neither of them are capable of being perfect. at fucking all

their biggest issue would be close to their canon shit.. toby wants to stay, clocky wants to leave. run away from all the bullshit she got trapped in. clocky is more likely to truly just fuck off and leave toby behind, and that scares the everliving shit out of toby every day - he'd swap between 'i have to be so good she'll never leave' and 'you fucking asshole just leave already its inevitable theres nothing i can do to change it'. but clocky just wants to live a normal normal normal life. she wants to grow old with kids and a career and a nice dog and to make dinner every night. she wants her biggest problem to be the dog tracking in mud.

eventually toby settles down, and while he cant just walk away from slenderman, they figure something out. a shared apartment, toby gets closer to the farm owners and he starts working more often. clocky gets into tattooing. toby is the first person she ever tattoos on. they both have to compromise a lot, but they can't imagine doing this for (or with) anybody else

[racefortheironthrone]

Not really directly related to the X-Men, but did you ever read the original series for the Power Pack? What did you think?

I'm a big Power Pack fan, having started with their intersections with the Claremont run - as I've talked about in the past, Claremont, Simonson, et al. were masters of the crossover, so it was natural that they would want to give a push to Weezy's characters in the X-books - that are rightfully considered classics because of the way they deftly managed pretty dark themes through the perspective of children.

As for their own adventures, the Power Pack are an unappreciated gem in Marvel's storied eighties, because of the way they break from the Marvel formula while operating seamlessly within the larger universe.

See, from the beginning of the Silver Age, Marvel differentiated itself from the Distinguished Competition by focusing like a laser on the teenage market rather than children. That's why Johnny Storm was a hotheaded teenage hearthrob, that's why Peter Parker started out as a normal, socially-awkward teen (just like you!), that's why the 05 X-Men were the "strangest teens of all!"

What Louise Simonson and June Brigman did with the Power Pack was to reinvent the child-centric focus of Golden Age D.C (think Robin and Superboy) and Charlton Comics (think the original Captain Marvel). Unlike those earlier child sidekicks and superkids, Alex, Julie, Jack, and Katie Power were not one-dimensional plucky moppets or precocious tiny adults.

Showing an impressive insight into child psychology, Weezy made them emotionally complex but also unmistakably still-in-development children, who were innocent and curious and boisterous but who also had tempers and got into fights with their siblings, or got scared and cried sometimes, who struggled with the desire for maturity and autonomy and the need for comfort and support from their parents. At the same time, June Brigman managed to do something that most professional comics artists notoriously struggle with: draw kids who looked like real kids, who were allowed to look goofy or awkward or gangly or rolypoly, rather than the idealized forms set down by the Nine Old Men.

And somehow, this alchemy made this book unusually emotionally resonant - although I may be something of an easy mark, because the Power Pack kids happened to be the children of Columbia University professors growing up in NYC's Upper West Side in the early 80s, just like me irl. While wrapped in a candy coating of kid superheroes with cool physics-based powers (Alex can control gravity by touching people or objects, Julie can turn into both waves and particles of light and fly at lightspeed, Jack can alter his body's density to become a miniature juggernaut or a living cloud, and five-year old Katie can turn matter into energy, absorb it, and fire it at the bad guys - the living embodiment of E=MC^2) fighting the evil alien Snarks with the help of a sentient spaceship, the Powers kids had to wrestle with having to hide their superheroics from their parents and the anxiety and guilt that resulted from that, and in their adventures they dealt with heavy topics like child abuse, gun violence, school bullying, mental illness and kidnapping and homelessness, and on and on.

Indeed, in the pages of X-Men, the Power Pack would go into the sewers under Manhattan to fight Sabertooth and the Marauders during the genocidal Morlock Massace, witness Wolverine wrestling with his humanity and his berserker rage in the Canadian wilderness, and fight to save Midtown New York from demonic incursions during Inferno. That's heavy stuff for a bunch of kids ranging from 5 to 12 years old, but somehow the Power Pack managed to make it through the most harrowing of adventures without losing their heroic spirit.

[happyk44]

hi bud, do you have literally any worldbuilding or other hcs about camp jupiter/new rome? would love to hear about it from you ^.^

OKAY! So I'm gonna break it down between Wolf House and Camp Jupiter/New Rome because I do have some ideas lol. Warning for mention of abuse, suicide and self-harm.

The Wolf House:

Most of the kids arrive at the wolf house between 9 to 12 years old. Jason and Frank are uncommon outliers. All demigods and legacies who live outside of New Rome have to go to the Wolf House (unless they receive an exception from their godly parent). Legacies who live within New Rome may be able to bypass the Wolf House if they prove themselves to Lupa as capable. It's uncommon for legacies to bypass the Wolf House in this way, as Lupa has high standards, but it isn't, like, rare or anything. It can happen, and a lot of parents do train their kids in some way so a lot of the legacies from New Rome do have more skills by the time they end up at the Wolf House.

Exceptions can be made for demigods or legacies who live outside of New Rome. The exceptions have to be requested by their godly parent. Hazel is an exception, with Nico providing her exception to Camp Jupiter from Pluto (debatable if this was valid or if he forged his dad's signature, lol, I like the idea he faked it, channeling that "Hermes was my babysitter and taught me fraud" energy). I also HC that Reyna was an exception, given by Circe who, as a surrogate mother, didn't want her to undergo further trauma via the Wolf House.

Some exceptions can be given if the demigod or legacy in question in signficantly physically disabled in some way. These exceptions aren't very common, and might be dismissed if the disability isn't considered severe enough by Lupa - like if the kid were deaf or blind, well, yeah, she's still gonna have them trained at the Wolf House. However, if they're a quadriplegic, then, yeah, an exception can be made. It is very rare that they can get an exception to Wolf House training/joining the army for mental disorders/disabilities though.

The Wolf House is traumatic. Kids learn unhealthy coping mechanisms and may commit suicide. This is where a lot of the survivors, especially Jason, pick up the idea that suicide is cowardly and pathetic. These kids are not remembered in a positive light. Legacies tend to commit suicide less than demigods because they are more prepared by their demigod parent(s) for what to expect by the time the wolves come to get them. But they still end up just as fucked, which is why a lot of demigods parents try to get their kids to bypass the Wolf House by training them early.

Abuse is also common in the Wolf House. It is a secluded location with significant isolation from external and alternative authority figures. Older kids can and will take out their fustrations on the younger kids. The wolves do their best to correct this behaviour when they see it because it goes against the idea of a healthy pack, but it does go unnoticed pretty frequently, especially with training being so physical. You can unload on another kid without reprimand if you're both supposed to be wrestling.

Sexual abuse is uncommon, but does happen, especially as kids start puberty while they're at the Wolf House.

The kids are forced to rely on the garden and hunting for food. They're not really allowed to leave the Wolf House until their training is complete. Kids who die, whether by the wolves or suicide, are buried in the garden as fertilizer. When Ceres' kids are buried, the garden doubles, sometimes triples, its output. When Pluto or Mors' kids are buried, the garden remains completely free from pests. So, in times where the garden might be fucked from weather conditions or the fact that the kids don't know how to garden, these kids might be targetted by the others out of desperation.

Training typically takes about a year. Some kids might stay longer or be allowed to leave earlier. They make the trek to Camp Jupiter in groups (except for Jason, who had to do the journey alone). The final leg of training before they leave is usually the kids being hunted by the wolves over the course of three days. It's a practical application of what they've learned in the Wolf House, and helps them better work together as a "pack"/team. They hide and live in the nearby forest surrounding the Wolf House. They are only allowed one weapon and the clothes they're wearing in order to really learn how to pick apart their environment to survive.

If you've lasted to this end of training, then there's about a 85% chance you'll survive. The 15% of kids who die are typically those who are seen as weaker by the group they are with or kids who were abusive - they either get left behind to die or are shoved in front of the wolves as an unwilling sacrifice. They might be killed directly by the other members of the group, but this is less common.

Camp Jupiter/New Rome:

There are more legacies than demigods. Because godly power gets diluted over time when it comes to legacies, especially those with mortal parents, "designer" legacies are common. Certain/powerful demigods are encouraged to have sex with each other to carry on the power of the godly parents, especially if the godly parents are complimentary to each other. The types of demigod who are most encouraged:

Kids of the Big Three (Pluto, Neptune, Jupiter)

Kids of the Archaic Triad (Jupiter, Mars, Quirinis)

Kids of the Aventine Triad (Ceres, Liber, Libera/Prosperina)

Kids of various war deities, like Bellona, Victoria, etc

Kids with natural powerful ability

So once Jason became old enough, as a child of Jupiter, he would've been heavily encouraged to procreate with various people, like Reyna or Hazel even.

Because these kids are born more for the benefit of the collective instead of inherent desire from their parents, blended families are very common in New Rome. Fertility treatments and rituals are also very common. There are a lot of rituals done before sex in order to encourage more of the positive traits of each god to be passed onto the kid, i.e. level-headed discipline instead of anger issues in grandchildren of Mars.

Camp Jupiter and New Rome have two primary source of funding: quest payments and child support. Gods will typically send a sum of money for each kid that they have at Camp Jupiter. The money for each kid does reduce when the kids move to living at New Rome, but it's still present until they die. Some gods send the money annually, some may send it monthly. Whenever a child of Pluto or Prosperina joins the camp, everyone rejoices because Pluto always sends a signficant sum of money since he likes to spoil his kids. He also gets them the best deals on materials needed for crafting. These kids are very heavily encouraged to stay at New Rome instead of leaving once they're finished with their service at Camp Jupiter.

While CHB tends to receive quests through the oracle and they're not as frequently delivered, quests at Camp Jupiter are very frequent and generally distributed directly from the gods themselves. Common types of quests:

I lost something, go find it

Mercury stole something, go get it (and maybe smack him a little because this is getting old)

My child's mortal parent passed away, please go collect them as they're too young to go to the Wolf House

I need something from someone but I'm not talking to them right now so go get it for me

There's a magical item in a dangerous location and I want it but I don't feel like fighting my way through the dangers so you go do that for me, thanks

Quests are always paid upon completion.

Camp Jupiter and New Rome is fairly self-sustaining. They have a large agricultural output. People who grow up in New Rome are taught farming and homestead basics, even if they never do those things full-time. Their diet is very healthy and vegetable forward. If they do eat junk food, it's usually stuff that can be easily made by the average person, like ice cream or cookies, not things like Skittles or doritos. As a result, a lot of the legacies who grow up in New Rome don't like certain food outside of New Rome that is made by machines/large companies, like bottled fruit juice or certain bread, because it tastes weird to them since they're not used to it.

For kids who are given an exception due to disability, they are still trained and taught how to protect themselves and others, even if they aren't drafted into Camp Jupiter. Legacies who live outside of New Rome but close enough may attend these trainings in their free time.

If a legacy has a mortal and demigod parent and the demigod parent passes away, there is a major effort by people at New Rome to bring the kid over to New Rome and raise them there, even if their mortal parent is still fully capable of raising them. The mortal parent is not allowed to live at New Rome though, so obviously they're not appreciative of the people trying to essentially kidnap their kid(s). I imagine some legacies do end up being kidnapped from their mortal family, especially if they're very young when their demigod parent passes. This is why, if someone does choose to live outside of New Rome, they typically leave California and live in another state (or country).

Also, demigods are prioritized as members of Camp Jupiter. So if there are a lot of demigods joining camp in one year or there are no open spots in the Cohorts, the legacies who were supposed to join (and survived the Wolf House) may return to New Rome as a reserve instead. They generally end up working the fields as part of their service instead, and may still be called to go on quests. They still do training with the others, but it's not like an every day thing, maybe once or twice a week in order to keep them fresh in case they're called upon.

As I've said before, I think the kids at Camp Jupiter/New Rome are more in touch with the ancient Roman traditions than the kids at CHB. They follow the Roman festival calender and rituals (updated for modern times/limitations, i.e. Octavian sacrificing stuffed animals instead of real ones). Worship of gods is commonplace. It's not out of the ordinary to see a small group of kids collected around a statue or public shrine to pray as you walk around.

Most have two or three primary gods, with their godly parent/grandparent(s)/great-grandparent(s)/etc included in the count. If they have a direct connection to a specific god, they're also usually included, for example, Jason worships Jupiter (his father), and Juno and Lupa, who he views as mother figures as he is Juno's champion of sorts and was raised by Lupa. For Reyna, she worships Bellona (her mother) and Circe (her surrogate mother). For legacies with more than two godly connections, they tend to choose the gods whose traits and powers are strongest in them. This is generally the god(s) who are most recent in their lineage, but not always (recessive genes and whatnot, lol).

Camp and New Rome also focus more on the collective than the individual, and because there are more legacies than demigods, casual use of magical power isn't very common. Part of this is because legacies tend to have weaker magic power compared to demigods, so it takes a lot of effort to utlize their powers and thus they don't use their powers very much outside of battle. The other part is that, since the Roman gods have less kids than their Greek counterparts, a lot of the time some demigods don't have siblings or even legacy counterparts who can train them to use their powers.

When they have power that comes instinctually, they're usually notched as one of those people that will end up having a bunch of people convince them to have lots of babies, lol. Especially if their power is super strong. But otherwise, they tend to struggle with exploring the use of their powers. It's not like they don't use their powers casually at all, but unless it's related to battle, farming, or whatever job they have (think a child of Prosperina who is a florist, or Octavian as an augur), you don't see it much and if casual use of power is done, it's typically from demigods, not legacies.

Jason probably uses his powers the most out of the current set of kids at Camp Jupiter (and Hazel, technically, but summoning metal is involuntary for her, so I don't really count it), and he doesn't really use his powers very much in general, aside from, maybe, flying.

Uhhh, there's probably more, but, ha, this is pretty long as is, and after two hours of thought and writing my brain is now cutting me off, so I'm gonna end it here. Thanks for asking!

[percyjacksonblog]

PJO TV series thoughts (some spoilers)

The actors know their characters really well

The pacing is too slow

It really missed the mark on Percy and Luke’s early relationship and therefore missed the emotional impact of Luke betraying Percy in the forest

Quit giving the kids the answers immediately, one of the best parts about the series is how you see Percy and the rest of the half-bloods wrestling with their issues during the quests and therefore generating more character development

Missed the opportunity to look more deeply into Annabeth and Luke’s relationship and Annabeth feeling betrayed by Luke

Did like them bringing up Thalia in more detail before SoM

Action scenes were lacking. These characters with the movie action scenes would have improved the overall experience in my opinion

The Lotus Casino and Hotel was disappointing to me. That chapter in the book revealed so much more about the characters then everything up to that point i.e a preview into their “fatal flaws”

Didn’t mention Annabeth’s love of architecture but A+ mentioning her fear of spiders

I did like some of the changes, and it overall was more true to the story than the movie

Not Jason Mantzoukas actually being one of the best casting choices for Dionysus

They did a good job making Kronos creepy, but missed just how sinister he actually is

Overall I did enjoy it. I think this was a good place to start to test the water and the audience before the rest of the story comes out.

Things I hope they do and keep in mind moving forward.

They need to pick the pace up. They cut so much from the book and just left the big plot points that it seems like nothing is actually leading them from one plot point to the next.

Hopefully the show runners saw what is happening with the stranger things kids and won’t let that happen here. They were like 12 years old when they started and now they’re in their late teens and early twenties. They need to film as much as they can for the next two installments as possible over the course of this year and then they can do the same with BotL and TLO. We’d either get a Logan Lerman or Stranger Things scenario where adults are playing teens and it looks so bad.

Better marketing for the pre-teen audience. I was in 6th grade when I first heard about Percy Jackson and The Lightning Thief had been out for probably close to 3-4 years so I literally grew up with Percy, it was a very personal story for me. That being said, because I was around Percy’s age I related to the characters more and there needs to be a better job of connecting the 11-14 year old target audience to this story. PJO fan clubs at the junior high schools, book clubs in their English classes with resources from the show etc. I love this story, but I’m a full grown adult now with an adult job and have had one for years so I know I’m not the target audience for this show, but I know several people like me who are in the same situation.

SoM is the shortest in the original 5 book series so they need to stick closer to the source material, maybe more Odyssey references as SoM is essentially a retelling of The Odyssey.

Unless they literally film the next 4 seasons at once within the next two years, I don’t think we’ll get a HoO series, the kids will be too old. The only work around I can see is recasting Percy and Annabeth or making two original characters, but then SoN,MoA and HoH wouldn’t make sense.

[blowflyfag]

WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT/FEDERATION MAGAZINE:  OCTOBER 1996

THE KID BENEATH HIS WINGS 

The Story of Shawn Michaels and Jose Lothario

By Bill Banks

As “Super Sock” Jose Lothario looked up from his office desk on a hot summer day back in 1982, he saw two figures standing in his doorway. One of the men, obviously the elder, held his son by his side. 

“My son Shawn wants to be a wrestler,” the man said. “You are the best we know of…a legend, and we would like you to train him.”

Jose took one look at the kid standing before him.. Couldn’t have been more than 17 years old. A scrawny, short-haired ball of energy with a big smile on his face. He didn’t know quite what to say, a silence echoed throughout the room for the next minute.

Pondering this, Lothario thought back a few years to the only other man he had ever trained–the late Gino Hernandez, a man who ultimately turned on Lothario and went down the wrong oath in life. Could he take another youngster under his wing, only to risk seeing yet another turn on him?

“Mr. Lothario,” the young kid said, breaking the silence, as he stepped forward to the legend’s desk. “My name is Shawn Michaels and I would like you to teach me how to be a wrestler, sir.”

After giving it some thought, Jose took the boy under his wing and trained him…working him countless hours in the gym, almost like a drill sergeant. You see, he wasn’t about to go easy on this new kid just because he was doing a favor for his father–Michaels was about to go through the ringer with “Super Sock”. Was this wide-eyed hopeful good enough or was he just a weekend warrior playing out a fantasy? That question was soon to be answered. After two months, Super Sock saw something in Shawn Michaels that he hadn’t seen in Hernandez–there was a spark in the kid’s eye. 

“After that second month, I knew Shawn was going to go all the way,” Lothario recalled. “He gave it his all in that gym, no matter if it was against me or another opponent. I thought to myself, “This kid is gonna make it’! He had the desire in his heart to be someone.”

Looking back on those first few months, Shawn Michaels remembers them vividly, as if they happened yesterday. You see, it wasn’t as if the Heartbreak Kid had simply just found someone who knew wrestling…Shawn  Michaels was given the opportunity to train under the man who he watched wrestle every Saturday morning on his television in the Lone Star State.

“I think every young boy who lived in Texas knew who Jose Lothario was,” Michaels said, “I first saw him on TV when I was 12, he was the first superstar to come across my screen. He is a legend in San Antonio, Cuba, Mexico…just about everywhere! The first day I met him in that office, I guess he saw something special in me.”

Lothario continued to mold the youngster into a fine wrestler. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months and so on. In and out of the ring, Jose was there to guide Shawn in his first few matches after he turned professional. Before each event, the mentor would sit down with Shawn in the locker room, doors closed. There he would go over with his young protege what to go look for from his opponents…the strengths and weaknesses of each obstacle he was about to face. After the match, whether win or loss, the same process would take place–-Shawn sitting on a chair, listening to the man who trained him. But the one thing that Jose drilled into Shawn’s head was that he shouldn’t underestimate any man because as Lothario put it, “There is always someone out there who can beat you.” Michaels discovered from Jose that in EVERY match he was learning something new from his opponents. 

Finally, the day came when Jose Lothario decided it was time to set this young kid out on his own. Jose remembered his days as a wrestler, and how he had never gotten a chance to make it “up north” as he would call it…the World Wrestling Federation. Shawn and Marty Jannetty were “getting their feet wet” in the AWA (American Wrestling Associate) at the time and opportunity started to knock for the tag team. Lothario very much wanted this for his pupil, so he gave Shawn a pat on the back, a hug and sent him to New York to try out for the “Big Time”. In every sense of the phrase, Jose Lothario loved Shawn like a son and if you love something you set it free.

As the months passed, Jose–now retired and living in San Antonio–would sometimes go into his living room and watch Shawn on television Saturday mornings. Marty Jannetty and Shawn Michaels were lighting up the ring in the World Wrestling Federation while Jose looked on from his home. Even though he was traveling Michaels never forgot the man who treated him like a son all those years.

 “He would call me sometimes after a match,” Jose said. “I would tell him about the things I saw that he wasn’t doing right, and I would tell him how to correct it. We kept in touch from time to time. I never forgot about him.”

Over the next several years, Jose watched Shawn grow from a challenger into a champion. He was watching when Shawn beat the British Bulldog for his first Intercontinental Title Championship on Saturday Night’s Main Event in 1992. He was also tuned in for the other Intercontinental Title reigns and on the occasion he won the Federation tag team gold. Throughout every championship match–win or loss– Super Sock was watching, jumping up and down on the couch with excitement or crying in pain for the Heartbreak Kid.

Then one day in January 1996, Jose’s phone rang. As Jose picked it up and said “Hello”, a few short words came from the other end of the receiver. It was none other than Shawn Michaels. 

“I listened on the phone and all I heard him say was, ‘Jose, they’re going to give me a shot at the Federation Championship at WrestleMania XII. Can you train me?’ I thought for a few seconds and then told him, ‘Of course I will, you know I’m here for you.’”

Federation officials had finally given Shawn Michaels the shot he had long been waiting for. After winning the 1996 Royal Rumble, Shawn was announced as the No.I contender for the Federation Title…the belt that was around Bret Hart’s waist at the time. Then interim president Roddy Piper declared that this match between the two at the annual extravaganza would be an Iron Man Match—60 minutes of pure action…and there HAD to be a winner.

“I went back to San Antonio and trained with Jose for two months,” Shawn said. “I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to go the full 60 minutes…that Bret would ultimately get to me. Jose looked me right in the eyes and said, “You’re going to beat him and I’ll train you to last for two hours if I have to!’”

March 31, 1996, is a day Shawn Michaels will NEVER forget. Shawn put on his ring attire and was getting ready to go to the ring, but butterflies soon started in his stomach and for good reason! Sixteen thousand screaming fans and millions of Pay-Per-View buyers were tuned in to see the main event between Michaels and Hart–for the Federation Title. This was the dream that Shawn had lived since the age of 12 and tonight was the night that he would either realize it or fail. Jose took Shawn, grabbed his shaking hands and said to him, “You have to do this for your fans…and I’m confident you will.”

After those words of encouragement, Shawn Michaels went out and outlasted Bret Hart for over 60 minutes to become the new Federation Champion. The dream had been realized…and it was something very special to have Jose there to experience it for the new champion.

“He always believed I would win the title that night,” Shawn said, “Winning that title was just a little something I did to repay him for all that he did for me. I could never fully pay him back for everything…for the trust he put in me and for the trust my family put in him. He opened all the doors for the HBK.”

Immediately following his win at WrestleMania XII, Shawn was forced to deal with the challenge of Camp Cornette. The British Bulldog, the man Shawn had first defeated for the Intercontinental Title, was back in the title picture. Only this time, Shawn was wearing the gold that the Bulldog was after. Through all the attacks and all the intense situations Jose remained by Shawn’s side.

After finally defeating the Bulldog at June’s King of the Ring, Jose and Shawn continued to be enraged by the actions of Camp Cornette, most prominently by Cornette himself and the man they call Vader. At the July In Your House on the Free-For-All, Cornette and Lothario had a face-to-face confrontation after Cornette berated the Federation Champion–something to which Super Sock took MUCH exception!

Later on in the night Shawn was pinned in a six-man tag team match by Vader himself…something Lothario was unable to do anything about. While getting ready to play Sweet Chin Music on Vader, Cornette grabbed Shawn’s foot–giving the Mastodon just enough time to recuperate and strike. Lothario got there seconds too late and Shawn was easy prey for the pin.

Now the table is set for two of the most highly anticipated matches to take place at September’s In Your House. It will be the mentor and the student in two separate matches–while the champion tackles the deranged fiend Mankind, Lothario will attempt to settle the score with Jim Cornette! Even though Jose may be in his late sixties, true to his word, he is going to teach Cornette a lesson in respect.

“I think I still have one or two ‘Super Socks’ still left in me,” Jose said. “I told Jim Cornette that if he kept messing with me and Shawn, I was gonna make him pay! I’m not nervous, because I know I can whip that dirty rat! And as far as Mankind, with everything I have taught Shawn, he’s gonna put that nutcase down for the count!”

“To let him ride with me on my career is something that I will always hold very special to my heart,” Michaels said. “Cornette is going to find out that he messed with the wrong man at In Your House! And Mankind? Jackson, the only melody you’re going to be hearing is the sound of that Sweet Chin Music!”

The road that lies ahead for Shawn and Jose will continue beyond In Your House–no matter what the outcome of their respective matches against Mankind and Cornette. Two men–one a champion, one a mentor–have matured over 15 years to get to this point in their lives. On any given night, after any match, no matter how much applause Shawn gets or how many autographs he signs, he still finds the time to sit behind closed doors with Jose–listening intently to his teacher as if he was a 17-year-old kid again.

As the saying goes: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

[blizzardsuplex]

Roderick Strong Primer Part II: But Who IS He, Tho?

Part I | Part II (you are here) | Part III | Part IV

[CW: mentions of alcohol and drug abuse, dysfunctional familial relationships, and gun violence]

Roderick Strong is the super cool wrestling OC donut steal of one Christopher Lindsey, born on July 26, 1983 in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. However, his family moved to Tampa soon after, which probably epigenetically contributed to him turning out a pretty good example of a Florida Man—or, at least, a Man from Florida. His mother is a paralegal, while his father is a self-taught musician who became/maybe still is an Elvis impersonator (yes, that’s why there was a picture of him as a child dressed in a sparkly jumpsuit on stage during that recent Collision promo); sibling-wise, he has one that we know of, a half-sister who is older than him by four years.

His childhood was…less than perfect. According to him, both in wrestling company-produced backstory blurbs and videos and interviews where he’s just shooting the shit with his buddies, he’d be left alone for hours at a time to basically babysit himself while his age was still in the single digits. His father had problems with alcohol, and would often come home from the bars he performed at around 4 or 5 in the morning; his mother had issues with harder drugs. Said parents would apparently get into screaming matches a lot. He had few friends and was picked on, in part because the family kept moving around Florida and in part because he was an awkward fat kid (to the point that in first grade he learned to pick his nose until it bled, something I didn’t even know you could do, so that he could go home early rather than deal with the fact no one wanted to talk to him at school). He liked math and he played a lot of sports, but because of a particular character trait of his that I will discuss from a kayfabe perspective in part 3 he still struggled to find a place for himself.

Then, of course, there was the incident that was both probably pretty traumatic and, if it didn’t happen, would have maybe meant that he would have never wrestled in the first place: when he was ten or eleven or twelve years old, his mom shot his dad near-fatally. The latter had to go to the hospital; the former spent some time in jail. After his father recovered, for a period of time he had to raise his son as a single parent.

Completely unrelatedly, said dad—who Roderick describes as both athletic and not at the same time—at one point got an invitation to learn how to wrestle under a “former WWE star” (which, especially in the 90s, everyone who ever jobbed on a single show billed themselves as). He agreed—but what to do about his kid while he trained? If they couldn’t afford to get someone to look after him before the incident, they probably still couldn’t on a single person’s salary.

His solution was, of course, to just bring his son with him. He’s not been totally consistent with how he described his initial reaction to tagging along: in 2015 he said he was a big wrestling fan and loved it; in 2023, during his appearance on AEW Unrestricted, he said he liked it beforehand but was a lapsed fan by the time his dad started learning how to wrestle. Either way, for the first month or so he just sat on the grass and watched sweaty, shirtless adults being put through their paces by their trainer—who, it turns out, was an actual former WWE star in Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart.

It was also Anvil who, despite only actively supervising for four or so months, catalyzed Roderick wanting to do wrestling, too. The story goes like this: after a month, he invited Roddy (who was 12 or 13 at the time) to get into the ring. According to the latter, all he did was “mess around a bit” on the top rope; as they were driving home, however, his dad mentioned that Anvil had told him his kid had potential, and that if he kept at it he might be somebody in pro wrestling. Whether or not the guy meant what he said, this was apparently the first time Roderick had been told by anyone who weren’t his parents that he was good at something, and from that point he began training in earnest.

His life was progressing in other ways, too. He was a two-way American football player at his high school, and ended up netting an academic scholarship to the University of South Florida, where he studied business for two years before dropping out.

Going back to wrestling, though, he ended up debuting at something like 14 or 15 and was already getting somewhere in-ring wise. For example, the former WWE wrestler Victoria’s finisher, the Widow’s Peak, is a move Molly Holly (who he’s friends with thanks to the Tampa wrestling circuit connection, by the way) apparently saw Roddy do at 14 in a backyard wrestling ring and recommended to Victoria for her to use. He also helped train, while he was still a teenager, his kayfabe brother and former tag team partner Sedrick Strong—who, if you’re wondering, came up with his ring name first, and was so set on it that, being billed as brothers and all, Roderick Strong had to be named Roderick Strong.

It’s hard to believe now, but initially Sedrick, who ended up retiring from prowres and becoming the branch manager of Tampa Toyota at one point, was the more successful one, participating in the pretty prestigious ECWA Super 8 tournament in 2003. Because of the same character trait I alluded to earlier, Roderick almost quit wrestling entirely in response. Fortunately for me and the 12 other Roddy marks active on the internet, he soon got an offer from Ring of Honor (for those doing the math, he was 19 at the time), ending up in the promotion around the same time as some really famous guys from there were active: Danielson, Punk, Joe…

ROH remained his home promotion for nearly 15 years, and while there, among other accolades, he became their second Triple Crown champion (the first was Eddie Edwards, his partner in the tag team the Dojo Bros). He also, at least in-ring, really got to know his future Undisputed Era stablemates in Kyle O’Reilly and Adam Cole. Roddy worked a lot of places, though, both on the indies and not: in the latter category, he went to Japan to wrestle for places like NOAH (and met Bobby Fish, another UE member, in the back of those tour buses), did TNA, and even had a one-off appearance on WWE Smackdown against Kurt Angle.

One of the independent promotions he worked, meanwhile, was (of course) California’s Pro Wrestling Guerrilla. He had matches there for over 11 years, from 2005 to, as described in the first part of this primer, his five minute championship rematch against ZSJ in 2016 (which also happened to be the event celebrating the promotion’s 13 year anniversary). I haven’t watched a lot of them pre-2014, but the ones I have? Bangers—but I don’t expect anything less from a Roderick Strong match, if I’m being honest.

But pro wrestling is, as much I hate to admit it, about more than technical greatness (though as I will try to touch on in parts 3 and 4, Roddy has been really great at the non-verbal parts of wrestling in general for years, including expressing and eliciting emotion in-ring). One of the most common criticisms lobbied at Roderick Strong until maybe a few months ago was that he had nothing beyond his technique. During his time as PWG heel champ, though, I am of the opinion that he proved those criticisms outdated—though admittedly it took him several years to get there.

In 2013 and before that, he was mostly a goofy face; in 2014, after he beat Adam Cole for the PWG #1 contendership at PWG ELEVEN, he turned heel on that same show by attacking Kyle O'Reilly post-title defense. It was only after losing his own title match to Kyle, though, then winning the championship one show later anyway thanks to goading a Kyle who’d literally just beaten Ricochet into a brutal 20+ minute Guerrilla Warfare match (at an event called, funnily enough, Black Cole Sun; these guys are all connected man LOL), that his heel turn was truly cemented. Armed with his stiff style, letterman jacket, End of Heartache as his entrance music, and his shitty little boots—which, by the way, originated from Trent? making him a t-shirt design with that phrase on it—he proceeded to terrorize the fans via being a massive prick and fight against a laundry list of some really good wrestlers:

Trevor Lee (now Cameron Grimes)

Zack Sabre Jr.

Speedball Mike Bailey

Matt Sydal

Chris Hero

Drew Galloway (now Drew McIntyre)

Mark Andrews

…and I’m not even counting the Mt. Rushmore 2.0/multi-man stuff!

Then ZSJ finally beat him for the title in a great bout and he left indie wrestling for WWE soon after. You know the drill. So, if you’re wondering why I and the previously mentioned 12 Roddy marks freaked out when he came back during PWG’s Mystery Vortex 8—which was also the 20th anniversary of the promotion’s founding!—hopefully this explains why a little. He just feels right in a PWG ring.

But the fact of the matter is he couldn’t come back for nearly seven years, whether to PWG or ROH or the many places all around the world he’s wrestled in. As I’ve mentioned, I didn’t watch NXT at that point, so I’ll let someone else explain that time in his career if ever; I also am making the assumption that if you’re reading this you’re aware of his current AEW run, so I’m not gonna recap that history either. He’s existed for 40 years and been wrestling for well over 20 of them, man, I don’t think I could get to everything he’s done even if I wanted to.

So: a basic history established. You might be wondering, though: throughout his long career…what was he like? As a North American wrestler who wrestles in the North American context, does he have that essential component of pro wrestling? Did he have a character?

The popular answer until recently? No. In part 3, though, I will hopefully provide some evidence that, at least by the time I first watched him, the answer was yes.

[unclefathersantateddy]

BB asks: 2 and 12!

These were some MEATY questions, thank you so much for asking!!! You always give the best asks lmao

2.1. favorite non-belcher character (and why)?

I'm gonna class teddy as a belcher here otherwise it's gonna be an obvious answer asdfghjkl. Man this is HARD, I like so many for very different reasons. Honestly it might be Zeke or Tami, which I never expected! I absolutely adore Tammy's phrases (Tammyisms? Lmao), like "snorgasm", "boob punch", "crap attack" - if anyone has a list of them all please may I have it🙏 - I also love how emotionally intelligent Tammy can be (a detailed explanation here). As for Zeke, pretty similar reasons! Zeke's relationship with Jimmy Jr is one I find really interesting. Zeke is obsessed with wrestling/fighting like a Typical Lad™ however, he also pushes J-Ju to be more emotionally literate. For example S9E3 Tweentrepreneurs;

J-Ju: one day Zeke wasn't around and I was bored

Zeke: lonely?

J-Ju: no, more bored

Zeke: sad?

J-Ju: no, bored!

Emotional illiteracy causes the inability to understand one's own emotions, listen to others, as well as empathising with their emotional stages. Thus often leading to decreased engagement with reality, resulting in boredom. Here we see Zeke teaching J-Ju new ways of describing how he (Jimmy Jr) may feel when he (Zeke) isn't around. Encouraging emotional literacy and in turn encouraging emotional responses to reality, a pattern which with consistency can prevent 'emotional stagnation' that can manifest as boredom! Whilst Zeke probably wouldn't be able to explain what he's doing, the fact he has the recognition of when to do it is an incredible skill for a 13 year old!

2.2. What’s your favorite episode and why?

So this is the question that's taken my days to answer this. I could not decide at ALL. But I think I have finally landed on S13E16 What a (April) Fool Believes! As for why, the first and foremost reason is the sheer happiness I get from hearing Bob finally day 'got you Mr Fischoeder!". There is SO much joy in H Jon's voice when he says it. My body biologically responds to it and fills me up with the same glee that babies should do (for my age, anyway). But the entire episode is just feel good, nothing bad actually happens to anyone at any point (iirc). It's just an easy, joyful, watch!

12.1. what’s your favorite quote from the show? 

Ohhhh man. Ooohhhhh MAN. This is so tough. There are so many that I can't think of any sjdjakdk. The most prevalent that comes to mind right now is from S14E5 Bully-ieve It or Not, when Trev charges Bob $7 for a glass of water and then goes "got you! classic me". Just the "classic me" tickles my soul I really respect the audacity LMAO.

12.2. If you joined one of the town’s groups (Wagstaff staff, carnies, knitters, one-eyed snakes, etc.), which would you join?

This is going to be an obvious one but the carnies! I come from the Concrete Jungle™ (an industrially significant city at that), so the idea of living in a tiny rural town that has carnivals seems to whimsical to me! I suppose it's a yearning for something I've never experienced, honestly! Also coming from a very Individualistic-society country, seeing a more community based society fills me with so much serotonin!!! Carniapolis is just JOY materialised!!!!! AAAAAAAA. It gives me so much drawing motivation and creativity, each and every facet of it! (I feel silly for this jakdjskdjsk)

[songmingisthighs]

MORE AND MORE PEOPLE ARE JOINING THE CAUSE THIS IS WONDERFUL. A VERY WARM WELCOME TO YOU ALL.

Also I'd like you to know the moment you said "why haven't you considered this possibility" about yeo being one of the culprits my suspicion was immediately UPPED but I'm suspicious of pretty much everyone except y/n and mingi (and joong yunho and jong are also pretty much fine) so it doesn't really make much of a difference to my list of suspects in the end

But also not sure if I think yeo is the culprit because why would he intentionally switch the bottles/contents and then nearly get himself killed??? He could be playing some 4d chess with that move if it is him but I somehow doubt a 12 year old would be quite that clever

AND YES GO MINGI STANDING UP FOR YOURSELF AND THAT WAS SUCH A CLEVER MOVE TO GET THE PHONE I APPLAUD YOU

Also woo being so concerned with his looks he immediately changes clothes for fear of being lame? LMFAO sounds about right 🤣 quick everyone point and laugh

Speaking of the brat, WOO DEFINITELY KNOWS ABOUT SOMEONE OR SOMETHING RELATED TO THE MURDER ATTEMPT AND WE WILL FIND OUT YOU VAIN CHILD YOU ARE NOT SAFE FROM US

And even yeo was starting to avoid woo before the accident? I'm still kinda sus on yeo but hmm it seems he may definitely have known something if he was being like that...

And y/n having a whole laundry list of tormentors, what did the poor girl do to deserve this that's so cruel :(

The culprit better be scared because we are coming and can't be stopped >:D

And finally, it's THEORY TIME!!!!!!!

I looked at some previous chapters to see if there were details we may have missed or forgotten.

I forget what exactly it was about (i think something school related), but in one conversation woo said "if yeo was here he'd back me up" and I couldn't help but wonder.......has some form of coercion possibly taken place? And perhaps someone (maybe yeo) put their foot down to stop it and this happened as a result 🤔

Either way, yeo deffo knows more than he's letting on or at least he DID know and has forgotten, curious to see what comes next

- mercenary anon 🫶

oh dude odln!yeo was a kid when he did it and he's DEFINITELY the type to be peer pressured into doing shit he shouldn't and honestly he was probably told that it would be fine bc the alcohol wouldn't be that much and he didn't expect to be in such a situation bc after that, he and woo were like BESTIES despite them having nothing in common

ODLN!MINGI PROBABLY HAD BEEN PLANNING TO SAY THAT FOR SO LONG HE JUST HAVEN'T HAD THE CHANCE LMAOOOO GOOD FOR HIM meanwhile odln!woo can still be an insecure loser and just like fucking shut up for 2 damn seconds

it's annoying that odln!woo is like THAT but he knows THAT MUCH i super duper hate it and like he can choke on his belt frfr bc like remember (y/n) is his FAMILY and not just family but his TWIN like dude ??? wtf is wrong with you ???? odln!woo and the other perpetrators better watch their 6 their days are numbered

let's be real, would odln!yeo, the spineless loser coward that he is, stood up to someone with THAT much narcissism ??? he'd wrestle a crocodile in a mudpit before he does that

how will things unfold tho ? 👀

[gretchensinister]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you @marypsue for tagging me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

732 oh gosh it needs to have text next to it to not show up giant

2. What’s your total word count?

1,316,095 aha you can tell most of my fics are short

3. What fandoms do you write for?

What I am currently preoccupied with is The Dark Crystal/The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. The vast majority of my fics are for Rise of the Guardians, and I have one fairly substantial fic each for Thor and Venom.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

Give You Everything, not surprised about this one, it's Eddie/Venom and I published it a little less than four months after Venom came out in theaters. 2. Single Snowflakes, this one is a surprise? It's barely over 1K, T for subject matter, Bunny/Jack where Jack talks about past trauma with Bunny. I wouldn't have written it except that this was part of my project to fill every prompt on Round 1 of the Rise of the Guardians Dreamwidth kinkmeme. I guess it resonated with people??? 3. How Old? Another Bunny/Jack fic, G-rated and very short. 4. What it Means to Ask, yet ANOTHER Bunny/Jack fic, G-rated, but about how serious the concept of being a "mate" is in Pooka culture. How Old? was also related to that. 5. Down and Dirty-a wrestling-type fight between Jack and Bunny turns into sex.

What have we learned? The Jackrabbit fans, they are legion.

5. Do you respond to comments?

For the past several years, yes, pretty much always. Back in 2012 when I was just starting to post on Ao3, I was like unto a nervous deer and sometimes didn't respond. But I did print out all the comments on Without Contraries There Is No Progression (Pitch/Sandy that got me writing big complete things) and put them on my fridge at the time. It helped me get my master's degree.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The one that comes to the top of my head is Warmer Than I Thought. Jack's dying because he just didn't have enough believers when he became a Guardian. He's not going to come back with continuity of self. Pitch is there to offer him some scant comfort as he goes.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I mostly write happy endings, honestly, but the honor of the most happy and resolved ending goes to His Time, which is chronologically the last fic in my Rise of the Guardians Apotheosis AU. It's a far-distant future, OT8, everyone is together and essentially the pantheon of a new planet they made after Earth is gone due to the expansion of the sun. They are trying to make it go well this time, and so far succeeding.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The closest thing to hate I ever got was on my explicit Thorki fic...from a person complaining about how much I had Thor and Loki talk to each other.

9. Do you write smut?

I write a lot of explicit sex, yes.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I've written a fair number in my prompt-fill project, but it's not something I'm drawn to write.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I've never known about any of my fics being stolen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Someone talked to me about translating one of my fics and I was very excited and I said yes. However I don't know what came of that because things happened and I fell out of communication with the potential translator. Maybe they finished it and I don't know about it!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, and I don't think I would, unless it was part of a strictly structured event/project.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Well, it's Pitch Black/Sandman. Conceptually, the ships I'm drawn to have ties to dichotomies of dark/light, good/evil, cosmic opposites kind of thing. Pitch and Sandy, as personifications of nightmares and dreams, were a perfect vessel for that obsession.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will?

I told my friends, "I'm not going to rewrite The Phantom of the Opera." And I'm not. But there's a version of PotO that I wanted that uh, isn't what any of the big official versions gave me. So I started writing and I have 49,615 words so far. If I don't find a way to finish it I think I will end up posting it as something permanently unfinished, because there's a lot that I like in it now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I have been told in a real graduate writing workshop that I have good dialogue. I also like to think I'm pretty good at sensory descriptions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The things I find extremely difficult are endings and like, plots where things happen--I want so badly to write a big complicated Space Empire story but like. How is does political intrigue? (This house is FEELINGS ONLY.)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language?

I don't think I'd ever do it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Almost certainly Dragonball Z. If all goes well, my friend and I may have the chance to excavate some of my old notebooks during the holidays and then--it's archive time and that is a threat.

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

It's A Draught of Light, which I love as it is, and for proving that I could write an alternate-world epic fantasy novel as long as I didn't like, admit that's what I was doing. I do admit though that I have an edited version that takes it farther away from being fanfic that I like even better. Maybe I should, hmm, start taking steps to making that version available, if you understand what I mean.

Who do I know writing out there that hasn't been tagged yet? @queerpyracy, @purplebloodedmajesty, @incurablenecromantic

[havenmoon1369]

Getting Her Back- Chapter 1

January, 2018: Tampa, Florida.

Drew had become a big star in NXT but had to take time off to recover from an injury he had sustained during a match a couple months ago. Drew didn't seem to mind because it meant he got to spend more time with his 12 year old daughter Quinnley or Quinn for short. He had become a single father not long after getting fired by WWE back in 2014. His girlfriend didn't like the fact he would have to go back to the independent wrestling scene and took off leaving their daughter behind. It was hard, but Drew managed to balance being a dad and a wrestler with the help of family and friends. He was finally able to go back to WWE in 2017 and perform on the NXT brand and had bought a house in the quiet Tampa suburbs. Unfortunately for Drew he still had nightmares about what had happened back in 2005 but he couldn't talk to anyone about it. Lately the nightmares were getting more frequent and he started to wonder if it was a sign of something to come. He tried to not let it bother him but it was always in the back of his mind.

Drew was picking up Quinn from school, it was a Friday and she was ready for the weekend. She had been asked by her friends to stay for a sleepover the next night, she was hoping her dad would say yes. After spotting her dad's car in the pickup line, she ran over and got in, "Hi dad!" she said surprising her dad who was lost in thought over the nightmares he'd been having. "Hey sweetie, did you have a good day at school?" he asked. "Ehh it's school dad, it sucks on good days" she said with a little bit of attitude. Drew just smirked and let out a little laugh, "well do you have any homework?" he asked. "Yes unfortunately" she answered annoyed, "well get that done when we get home that way you have the rest of the weekend free and I'll start dinner after you're done" he said. "Speaking of the weekend, can I go over to my friend's house for a sleepover tomorrow night?" she asked, "I don't know do I know this friend?" he asked, "Yes dad, it's Holly, we've been friends since Kindergarten. Please dad I really want to go!" she asked again with her big blue eyes pouting. "Alright, alright kiddo you can go as long as you get your homework done and your room is clean" Drew said, "Thank you dad!" Quinn said with a big smile on her face.

Drew and Quinn had an uneventful evening that day. Quinn did her homework, ate dinner, and ran up to her room to clean up and start packing her bag for the sleepover. Later that night she played Minecraft while Drew was downstairs watching TV after doing a light workout to rehab his injury. It got to be around midnight and Drew called it a night, he went upstairs and saw Quinn had already fallen asleep. He turned out her lights and whispered "Love you Quinn." and shut her door, then went to his bedroom and quickly fell asleep. Around 3 am, Quinn woke up suddenly, she felt as though she was being watched but just thought she had a nightmare and was overthinking it. She got out of bed to go downstairs to get a drink so she could go back to sleep, she made it to the kitchen only to see two figures dressed in all black and faces covered standing there. She screamed as loud as she could for her dad only to have a cloth put over her mouth, she quickly lost consciousness. Drew however heard her screams, bolted up from his bed, and ran as fast as he could downstairs, only to be knocked over the head with something and he too lost consciousness.

[blazehedgehog]

Thoughts on One Piece?

I've told this story, but since Tumblr search is so awful, I'll tell it again.

The short of it is: I really wanted to get into One Piece. When One Piece started, pirates weren't really a subject you saw a whole lot of in anime. I thought Oda's art style was fresh and cool, too.

I did not like dealing with fansubs. They were kind of difficult to acquire (relatively), and at the time, I had a router that would absolutely crap its pants if I left a torrent running (it would have a firmware crash and all internet traffic would die until you power cycled the device). So the Kaizoku stuff was right out for me from the start.

I forget which came first, the 4Kids dub or Viz launching American Shonen Jump with their version One Piece. I think the 4Kids dub was first, because I remember being angry at Viz for adopting "Zolo" instead of "Zoro." Either way, I was angry about the 4Kids dub, but I was lucky enough to pick up the entire first 12 months of Shonen Jump, and figured that's where I'd start with One Piece.

Didn't have the money to keep buying new Jumps past that first year, so I figured I'd have to slum it with scanlations at least. I believe I left off in the back half of Baratie, and the only scanlations I could find from that part of the manga were like, truly awful quality. I have described them as "third generation Yahoo Groups quality scans." They were dark, blurry, heavily compressed, and the dialog was barely a step above an automated machine translation. I almost wish I could find them again, because it was nasty.

Around this time I think Funimation announced they wrestled the rights to One Piece away from the decaying hands of 4Kids, so I was happy to wait for that. We subscribed to Netflix in those days, the original DVD-by-mail service, so I'd rent each new set as they came out. Got all the way up through Baratie, up through Arlong Park, up to where they visit and prepare to leave Loguetown.

I think by the time the DVDs hit the fifth set, I ran into a problem: physical rental locations like Blockbuster had hard rental deadlines. You had to bring the disc (or tape) back in a day or two. Netflix, famously, had no rental deadlines. Keep things as long as you like.

While I had no trouble getting 1-4, some clown got set 5 before I could, and sat on it. For over a year. I complained to Netflix, and Netflix just shrugged at me.

Within a year or two of that, Funimation officially launched a One Piece website, like my memory is saying it was onepiece.com or something (which it isn't, that's a clothing store), but the point was they were announcing they were going to simulcast subs of the anime, for free, on this site. They were also adding dub episodes to this site, again, to stream for free. Back then, this was pretty unprecedented. Hulu was only a few years old at this point.

I figured: wow! Now's my chance! Go to check the website and...

The free episodes ended at the exact same point I left off at with the Netflix DVDs. Episode 53. It went from Dub Episode 53 straight to Sub Episode 230, which is where the simulcast began. Looking at Funimation's current site, this is what they consider "Season 1."

So I earmarked it. "Maybe I can finish it some day."

Some day never came. One Piece is over 1000 chapters (100 volumes) and 1000 episodes. There is over 430 hours of One Piece available to watch. The manga is so big people have talked about it taking up an entire shelving unit. I even saw photos once of somebody who had their shelf break because their One Piece collection was so heavy.

It took me over a year to read 16 volumes of the original Dragon Ball. There are almost ten times as many volumes of One Piece.

I have given up. I will never read it. Never watch it. Never see it. It's great that it's this amazing thing, truly this long journey, but even at 500 chapters it would have been too much.

Even if I wanted to, it's grown to be such a thing that when something happens in the anime or the manga, there are instantly spoilers for it all over the entire internet. 107 volumes of that is pretty disheartening.

I know about One Pace. One Pace is still too long. Some of those videos are over 20 hours. For a single video. And One Pace still has gaps in their coverage anyway.

It's just not happening.

[djemsostylist]

Having recently watched the Star Wars films again, I decided to also tackle the books again as well. I've read most of what Star Wars has to offer, but there are a few I haven't made it to and a few I feel like I don't appreciate the way I should.

I started with the novelization of The Phantom Menace by Terry Brooks, and I'll be honest when I say I didn't expect much. TPM as a movie was boring, and I figured the novel wouldn't be much better.

I was wrong. I was so wrong, in fact, that I'd say I highly recommend it. See, my chief problem with the prequels is a two-fold one: 1, George wrote a truly horrible story, and 2, George hired truly atrocious actors to be the leads. Ewan McGregor not withstanding, the actors he hired were barely able to handle the script he gave them, let alone bring something more to the characters.

Anakin's fall should be slow, steady, bit by bit and then all at once. He should be Anakin, of course, but he should also be Vader. Because that is the thing about Anakin--he was always Vader. He didn't have a nightmare once and wake up Vader, after having been a good man his whole life. Vader's selfishness, his single-mindedness, his fear, his fixations, his rage, and his desire for power and control were always a part of Anakin, as much as his supernatural ability with flying and machines and his visions of the future. Anakin could be kind, he could be selfless, he could be decent, but all of these aspects of Anakin were always entwined with Vader. And as time goes on, it becomes harder and harder to hide the Vader, to pull on Anakin's face and plaster on Anakin's smile and pretend that the fire that rages always is banked, is controlled, is not waiting to consume. So when he takes those final steps, when he kills Mace and kneels before Palpatine and takes the Temple, we should have seen it coming. Not because we've seen the original trilogy and we know that Anakin is Vader, but because we've seen the Vader in him all along. Because this was always how his story was going to end. He was always going to be Vader, forever.

The problem is that the movies don't really give us that, particularly in TPM. I think George sort of wanted to show this kid's super innocence, and it came across as grossly naïve and also almost cloyingly sweet. The Anakin we get in TPM has no hints of Vader, no darkness, no intensity, none of the vices which will plague him for a lifetime. He's sweet and innocent and pure, in a way that's almost annoying its earnestness. He has little to no agency in his own story--he isn't even a POV character. And Padme, who will one day become his future wife, views him with the same sort of feeling one would expect for a 14 year old girl and a precocious little moppet--she thinks he's cute and childish and that's about it. She likes him certainly, but so does everyone he encounters, because he's a caricature of childhood innocence and naivete. There's nothing to him.

Anakin in the novel comes across as older--I'd put him at 12-13, to the movie's 9. (The book does state that he is 9, but I teach 9 year olds--even an incredibly precocious one would not come across like Anakin). In this Anakin, we see shades of Vader. He lives in a constant state of hyper awareness of both his abilities (which he is fully aware of, unlike in the movie where he seems not to notice his skills at all), and he wrestles constantly with a gnawing fear of losing everything he loves. This Anakin is quiet and thoughtful, and though kind and outgoing, is also prone to fits of rage or moments of utter stillness. When Watto is screaming in his face, Anakin sort of checks out, blank faced and staring until Watto exhausts himself and forgets to scream, ostensibly because he knows that arguing is useless, but also because, I think, he isn't sure what will happen if he fights back. He dreams of a life in the stars, but he can't see a future without his mother. He knows that he has abilities others don't, and he knows enough to keep them to himself. He saves the life of a Tusken Raider in the desert because he feels its pain, but he also beats the shit out of a teenage Rodian (a young Greedo as it would happen) because he is mourning the loss of Padme.

And speaking of Padme, their relationship in this is intense. In the movie, Padme pays about as much attention to him as you would expect, given their age difference. It would be weird for her to be as immediately smitten and attached, and likewise Anakin's interest in her seems childish and unremarkable.

In the story, their connection and mutual interest is instant and intense. From the moment they first meet in the junkshop, they are almost always together, and Padme is as fascinated and drawn to him as he is to her. (Which, coincidentally, fits much better if she is 14 and he is only a little younger). They spend all their time together, and are often lost in deep conversations. Anakin can't stop thinking about her, and she doesn't seem to mind when he holds her hand or tells her that he is going to marry her someday (with a flash of foresight). He sees visions of her in his future, leading an army, older and sadder. She seems to have difficulty leaving him (when she climbs on the Eopi to leave, she doesn't make eye contact and refuses to look back) and Anakin is devastated by her loss. He ends up beating the shit out of Greedo for an unrelated offence, and doesn't even seem to realize what he's doing until Qui-Gon shows up to pull him off.

Later, when he finds out the truth about Padme being the queen, she goes out of her way to find him and make sure he still feels the same about her as he did before. She promises him, on the ship when he gives her the Japor carving, that she will never forget him, the way way she feels about him--even makes a callback to his assertion that they will one day be married.

And this works. It works in a way the movie doesn't, because you get these two people who are both more mature, more grounded than anyone else their age, and they immediately share this intense, overwhelming bond that sort of takes both of them by surprise. It makes sense then, why, meeting years later, they are just as instantly drawn back together.

(In my version of the Clones, with an exaggerated timeline, Anakin and Padme would be on Naboo for close to a year, carefully working to bring about an end to the blockade and invasion, Anakin being trained by Qui-Gon on the dl, and they'd grow ever closer. I'd probably even have their first kiss maybe, during this time--she'd be almost 15, he'd be almost 14 (assuming he's almost 13 when we meet him), and this would enforce their bond.)

My point it, that in the novel, Anakin is intense, smart, deeply connected to the Force, and already aware of his abilities, though not in control of them or truly aware of what they mean. He is kind and thoughtful, but he is also prone to rage and fear, and he struggles with both. He is already terrified of loss, and he struggle with it throughout the novel itself. He also has the intensity that Vader has, the fixation--he's obsessed with Padme from the moment he meets her, and though his obsession is reciprocated, it doesn't make it any less intense. The Jedi, too, are concerned about his rage issues in a way the movie doesn't make clear--so much so that in the book they not only defer making a decision about his training on Coruscant, they expressly forbid Qui-Gon from training him. It's the rage as well as the fear that give them pause.

Overall, the novel sets up an Anakin (and a Padme really) that are believable for the people who they will become. There is an obvious through-line from Anakin to Vader, and it makes for a more cohesive character overall. And having Padme be just as drawn to him from the beginning also helps--their relationship has never been sane or healthy, and that is the point. Two early teens sharing an intense bond that only strengthens with time makes a lot more sense than randomly falling in love with the weird teenager you first met a cherubic child.

I'm curious to pay attention the through lines of this as the novels go on. Up next: Rogue Planet and then The Approaching Storm. (collecting all the novels year ago really was a stroke of genius).

[thesaleswhisperer]

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[skinni-girls-eat-books]

Thursday, January 25th, 2024!

12:49pm my brain feels so burnt out, it's difficult not to just return to bad habits. My body is tired and stress is wrecking my physical being. My back hurts, legs hurt, neck tension and headaches. Owch

Need to find better things to focus my little energy on. Things that feed me, I am very empty, like there's a hole at the bottom of me where everything leaks out. Old is bad, new is better. I want to stop going back to old, bad, tired situations. Nothing in the past changes. New is good.

Lots of just being in my own head, I want to get back to reality. I think that will help me not feel so floaty.

1:22pm omg I just realized my bad bitch playlist is public on Spotify and 6 ppl saved it?? Omg who are you guys and can we be friends what that just blew my mind and made my day how?? What?? I love it

3:24pm Reactive abuse is so real. I have to remember that I am NOT to blame for this shit. I actually didn't DO ANYTHING TO HIM WTF fuck him, he hasn't changed and only serves to prove me right and as a reminder again and again. I feel like he has moments where he'll admit this, or agree with me, but I think it's just breadcrumbing. Yeah so one day he says it's not my fault at all then the next day yeah it is kinda my fault like which one is it 😑 Rip but I know what I'm dealing with. The only reason I'm sad is bc the situation is so fucked up, it's more like grieving than actually being sad sad. It's just like damn wtf. I know I can pullllll when I want to though haha the issue is I just don't want to right now 🤭😁

I think I do need to get help for my depression/ anxiety though bc I don't want it to snowball into something so much harder to come back from. At least I'm aware of the issue, it's just deep rooted in me atm.

9:56pm Sat next to two of my bff's at the TB Lightening game tonight! Learned that there's 3 periods in hockey (I thought there was four) and the fights are REAL not like fake wrestling but the refs just stand there for too long and let them duke it out lmao?? I love my friends :)

Being happy lately results in me literally crying it's like feeling pure joy with no "waiting for the shoe to drop" :) I think I'm crying bc of relief? Grieving the fact that I was not happy for so long so I'm crying? Crying bc for example I've missed out on the past two years of these bc I didn't want to buy 2 tickets and for whatever reason.... It wouldn't work out or he would just be so embarrassing to me... Then it's going alone and ppl asking why he's not there?? It has been too much anxiety >> benefits in the past, but not anymore ❤️ I'm changing for the better. I miss the old me so much, but I know I'll love the new me even more.

Also yeah whatever technically some things were probably my "fault" bc of my anxiety...... But a partner who actually takes time to know you would be able to identify that or at least question the possibility that anxiety is a factor in decision making. But his actions/ emotional abuse >>>> way more impactful than just my social anxiety (plus I literally had the social anxiety for good reason if I can't take you anywhere without you smelling like weed and texting other girls while we're out).... Yeah I'm not fucking crazy, but I do need self-help. The intrusive thoughts are a lot still. They'll dull with time, even if it takes years I have a good feeling they will become submerged and buried under all the good memories I'll make. It's honestly already starting to happen if you ask me. I'm so ready for my birthday, what a new chapter I love it ❤️

11:45pm Went ahead and deleted the emails. He did not respond to me today so it's all moot point. He's abusive and idc if he doesn't know now and idc if he never figures it out. He's one out of 8 billion people on this planet and he needs to stay in the past. His loss I'm literally awesome af future doctor baddie and he's fucking retarded scrub bum byeeeee. Good way to end the evening ❤️

[questintheskies]

THE IWA'S 2024 DEAL: THE GREATEST OFFER IN IWA HISTORY!

"Are you a former player looking to come back to the IWA, or a new player who is ready to give it a go? There is no better time to play the IWA, because this is the best deal that has ever been offered. The deadline for this deal is February 18th, 2024, so don't delay! This deal is being sponsored by the IWAR Network. Thanks for playing!" -- IWAR Commissioner Matt Riley

www.playiwa.com

PERSONAL FROM ME, TOMMY, WHO RUNS THIS BLOG...

During the mid 90s, I used to play in a play by (snail) mail wrestling game known as the Imaginary Wrestling Association. I was around 10 to 12 years old at the time, and I was not very good at it haha I had no real clue what I was doing!

But, with that said, I remember the days coming home from school, and excitedly waiting for the next paper bulletin to arrive in the mailbox. It was such a cool feeling. Scanning through the pages, reading the trash talk from other players... the visualization was something different. I'd take it with me on the bus and to school.

It was such a hip and cool back in the day that actual wrestlers like Bryan Danielson and Hurricane Helms were even a part of it during their youths. A lot of pen pals were made all around. For me? I would get USWA tapes from one of the friends I made at the time.

Ah those were the good old days before the internet, and sadly that type of joy and feeling can never be replicated in this day and age, but the memories live on right?

After discovering it in 1994, I would say goodbye to the IWA during 1997. It would became a distant memory from that point on.

That was until around December 2018. This sudden flashback hit me. I remembered there was a game that I played as a kid in the mail. But, wait what was it called? Did I imagine it?

Eventually I found out it was real and it was called the IWA. They were still alive after all of these years! Upon finding it, I decided right away to try my hand at it again.

They were still mailing the bulletins, and also now posting the results online. That feeling as a kid sort of returned a tiny bit. But, this time? I was in my 30s, and a bit wiser haha

So began my re-journey into the Imaginary Wrestling Association. I started off as a rookie in the New Wave League, a place all newbie and returning players from past tend to find themselves in.

To be truthful, I wasn't very good when I started, but I understood the concept a bit more then I did as a kid. Like anything in life, you go through growing spurts, and learn through your errors.

Overtime, I caught on on how to play the game. I was foolish in the beginning since I would just picked holds that I felt fit my created wrestlers best. I was not understanding the value of the holds.

It took awhile for me to get that part of the game. I had the wrestlers personalities down, the logos, the trash talk, etc. but man I was a real rookie. Even when I expanded out of the NWL, I was kind of a duck sitting in the water.

Ironically, I won my first IWA Elite by pure luck in a women's league known as the RWL. I was just picking random moves, and just so happened to get it right haha

That first huge win made me want to improve as a player, and with some teaching from one of my friends, Randall Angel, I was finally able to understand the concept behind the holds. Next thing I knew, I was able to hit 498s, 499s, 500s, and 501s. I went on to many things in the IWA Report throughout my time in the game.

I never won the big one, the IWA World title, but that never really mattered to me. The IWA helped me branch out my creativity, and I made some really cool friends.

My time in the IWA ended right before the Summer of 2022. At that point, I was burnt out, and felt I had achieved all I can. Money was also becoming an issue, and I wanted to pursue other things like this blog.

During my final 2 years, I shined brightly as a commissioner. I made up my own brand, 3 leagues from pure scratch that were among the top 10 leagues in the game, and another I took over and made my own thing. It was a lot of fun, I pushed myself to my limits, and did everything I could for my players. It was great, but all good things eventually come to a end.

I am forever thankful for my time in the IWA. From the friends I made such as Brandon Madden, Timothy Clark, Jason Davis, Robert Harper, Rob Lawson, Joseph Cockrell, Catfish Rob, the teachings from Randall Angel, the time I had in the IWAR as a rookie and the things I learned from Matt Riley, to players who helped my leagues work, to the people who decided I was a commissioner of the year, Tommy Zulu for his respect for me, all of the people who did podcasts for me, and the staff of the IWA such as Kim and Johnny B. who let me push my creativity to my limits, and gave me the tools and prizes to make things fun in my leagues. Also the fun events like Royal Caribbean and Irish Pub Showdown! What a blast those were!

Personally, the decision to retire from the IWA was the right call for me as it opened the doors for me to create this blog, have more time for gaming, wrestling, Jdoramas, physical therapy (I have problems with my feet, back, and neck after all the toll from work) and more, but it is a really fun experience to try out. While it might not personally be for me anymore...

If you are a fan of wrestling, like to write, and challenge yourself, you should check it out.

I wrote this post out of respect to the game, the players who put in the work for it, and because it truly is a good time, so please do consider looking into it. I have over 3k followers on this blog, so I hope some will be intrigued.

I know the 80s and 90s are fading away more and more, and the intrigue for this type of stuff might by dying with the newer generations coming, but the IWA deserves to continue it's lasting legacy for a bit more time, so please do consider it!